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The two-month old Social Justice Committee constituted by the Uttar Pradesh government favours radical changes in the existing reservation policy in the country's most populous state.
Submitting his 200-page report to the government in Lucknow on Friday evening, committee chairperson and state parliamentary affairs minister Hukum Singh told mediapersons, "We have now classified the newly classified 79 backward castes into three categories - general backwards, most backwards and extreme backward castes."
Of these Yadavs alone were kept in the first category, while eight castes formed the most backwards and the remaining 70 will fall in the extreme backward category.
Among the revolutionary recommendations made by the committee is to limit the quota for Yadavs to just five per cent. At present, they corner a large chunk of the 27 per cent reservation earmarked for Other Backward Castes (OBC).
But what is likely to stir a hornet's nest is its proposal to put an end to reservation for the dependants of Class I and Class II officers belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
"When they are getting the best of everything, why must they be entitled to this special benefit?" Hukum Singh asked.
"The proposed new policy would ensure horizontal upliftment of the truly deprived ones among scheduled castes and scheduled tribes," he said.
If accepted by the government, UP would be the first state in the country to go for such a drastic measure.
The committee had also recommended a special quota of five per cent for the poor among the upper castes. Singh, however, said the proposal would require ratification by the Centre, while the state was empowered to go ahead on the other recommendations.
Explaining the basis for limiting the quota for Yadavs, Singh said, "Their population is just about 19.5 per cent of the total OBC population. However, they hold 34 per cent of the government jobs while the most backwards and extreme backwards not even one-fourth of that when their share in the population is 25 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively."
The committee has also favoured enhancement of the overall OBC quota from 27 per cent to 28 per cent.
While favouring enhancement of annual income limit for OBCs above the creamy layer from Rs 100,000 to Rs 300,000, he strongly felt the need for strict enforcement of the concept at the field level.
Significantly, the committee has attempted to draw a parallel between scheduled castes and the extreme backward castes. "Extremely backward castes too deserve access to funds from the Indira Awas Yojana, special scholarships, hostels in urban areas as well in allotment of land to the landless," Singh said.
The committee chairman claimed that some of the recommendations were already in force in some southern states.
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